CURRENT AFFAIRS 19th JULY, 2014

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1. According to the annual Global Innovation Index (GII) survey 2014, India stands at 76th position which is 10 places lower than the last year's ranking. China was the best among BRICS nations at 29th position, Russia at 49th rank and South Africa ranked 53rd position. The rankings are jointly published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation and it uses 81 indicators to study innovation capabilities and results in 143 countries.

2. The Union government appointed former Supreme Court judge G S Singhvi as its arbitrator for the case involving Reliance Industries (RIL) and its partners over delay in revision of the price of natural gas from the Andhra offshore KG-D6 block.

3. In the draft guidelines for Infrastructure Investment Trusts, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has allowed them to raise capital from the public with a minimum issue size of Rs 250 crore and can own up to Rs 500 crore in an underlying infra project. The minimum subscription size is reduced to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 10 lakh earlier and the minimum investment by institutional buyers and corporate groups is kept at Rs 1 crore.

4. Union ministry of commerce has planned to set up a medical device testing laboratory near Ahmedabad and to open at least five incubation centers across the country for research and development (R&D) activities. The decisions are taken to boost the medical device and pharma machinery sector.

5. The telecom regulator TRAI has recommended allowing telecom operators to share all kinds of airwaves including those administratively allotted and liberalise the limit on the spectrum that can be pooled in. It will help companies to optimally utilise the scarce spectrum resource and also consumers get better services.